Customizing SharePoint Web Parts with Custom Properties.pdf

15 Seconds : Customizing SharePoint Web Parts with Custom Properties

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15 Seconds : Customizing SharePoint Web Parts with Custom

Properties

Gayan Peiris

02/18 /2004

Developers have the flexibility to create custom Web Parts to achieve sophisticated custom

functionality in SharePoint Portal server. Typically this will be used to create common customized

functionality for a specific organization or project. There are several properties available by default

from SharePoint Portal server to customize the Web Part. Alternatively, developers can create their

own custom properties to achieve extra customization on Web Part appearance and behavior.

Properties

The Web Part base class provides a set of default properties which allow users to change appearance

and behavior. These properties are found in the default Web Part property pages and contain basic

customization properties, such as height, width, frame set state and much more (as illustrated below).

Figure 1: Properties available by default in the "default" property pane.

TIP: To access the property pane, select the Edit mode of the Web Part. Then click the down arrow

located at top right hand corner of the Web Part. Select "Modify Shared web part" (or personnel

depend on witch mode the Web Part is running).

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download source code

15 Seconds : Customizing SharePoint Web Parts with Custom Properties

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The properties are categorized according to their behavior and functionality, which provides a logical

structure when you need to find the right item. According to Figure 1, all the properties that affect

appearance are listed below the "Appearance" category and all the advanced options under the

"Advanced" category.

While the default properties are a good starting point, it won't take long until you come across

development requirements which the default properties cannot satisfy. This is where you implement

Custom Properties to achieve the additional functionality or behavior required.

Custom Properties

A Custom Property is a property that a developer creates when they need to introduce additional

functionality or behavior to the Web Part that is not provided by the base class.

The Visual Studio .Net environment supports the development of Web Parts for SharePoint Portal

Server. The Web Part Template provided on MSDN ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?

url=/library/en-us/odc_sp2003_ta/html/sharepoint_webparttemplates.asp ) provides an excellent

starting point with the structure of a custom Web Part property (example below).

///<summary>

/// Default property available form the template

///</summary>

[Browsable( true ),Category("Miscellaneous"),

DefaultValue(defaultText),

WebPartStorage(Storage.Personal),

FriendlyName("Text"),Description("Text Property")]

publicstring Text

{

get

{

return text;

}

set

{

text = value ;

}

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15 Seconds : Customizing SharePoint Web Parts with Custom Properties

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Figure 2: Default custom property available from MSDN template.

Before we start developing any custom properties, let's have a look at how custom property works.

The custom properties can be customized and saved in SharePoint as XML. The

System.Xml.Serialization namespace is used to serialize the Custom Properties to XML. The above

namespace will be available from System.Xml.dll assembly. There is a XML namespace attribute

defined at the root level of the assembly as displayed below,

///<summary>

/// Customize a web part

///</summary>

[DefaultProperty("Text"),

ToolboxData("<{0}:CustomizedWebPart runat=server></

{0}:CustomizedWebPart>"), XmlRoot(Namespace="CustomizedWebPart")]

publicclass Customer : Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart

{

Figure 3: XML namespace in root level

The namespace attribute can be defined, either at the root level or at the property level. If a root level

XML namespace is available, the developer doesn't need to assign XML namespaces at property

level. But if the developer assigns a XML namespace at the property level, this will override the

XML namespace assigned at the root level.

If you are using the template provided by MSDN, the System.Xml.dll will be automatically added to

your reference in Web Part project as display below,

Figure 4: System.Xml.dll in Web Part project reference list

There are two parts to create a Custom Property:

1. Create property accessors

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Each Custom Property of the Web Part requires the appropriate get and set accessors methods.

publicstring Text

{

get

{

return text;

}

set

{

text = value ;

}

Figure 5: Get and Set accessors methods for a Web Part property in C#

2. Set Web Part Property attributes

Most attributes are members of the System.ComponentModel namespace. This namespace provides

the classes that are used to implement the run time and design time behavior for Microsoft .NET

components and controls. At the same time, there are properties like WebPartStorage attribute,

which are specifically designed for Web Part properties. The attributes that you specify for the

custom property will determine the behavior of the Web Part in the property pane and determine the

storage for the custom property. Following is a list of attributes available and how they affect the

behavior of the property.

Browsable

Determines whether or not the property is visible in the property pane or not. Setting this

attribute to true will include the property.

Category

The property pane is divided into sections. This attribute determines the name of the section in

the property pane where the custom property will be displayed. This allows the developer to

categories their custom properties according to their logical functionality. If the developer

does not specify this attribute or select "Default" as the category, the custom properties will

display in Miscellaneous section of the property pane. At the same time, if you select one of

the default categories, such as Appearance, Layout or Advanced, the category attribute setting

will be ignored and the property will displayed in Miscellaneous section.

Default Value

This is the default value of the property. It will minimize the storage requirement by storing

the property value only if it is different from the default value.

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Description

Additional information regarding the property for the end-user. The description appears as the

tool tip when the mouse hovers over the property.

FriendlyNameAttribute

This is the caption of the property when it is displayed in the property pages. If this attribute is

omitted, the actual name of the property is used instead.

ReadOnly

The custom property will be read only if this is set to true.

WebPartStorage

There are three settings for this attribute.

Storage.Shared: Display in property pane when the user is in shared view of the page.

Storage.Personal: Displays when the user is in shared OR personal view of the page.

Storage.None: Does not persist the setting of the property and will not display in the

property pane.

Properties will display in different formats according to the property type. (as displayed below)

Property Type Display as

Bool

Check box

DateTime

Text box

Enum Drop

down box

int / string

Text box

• Code Example >>

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